Fellowship of the Ring Maps

Two new Middle Earth maps that correspond to chapters in The Fellowship of the Ring include "The Village of Breeland" and "Nen Hithoel."

Map of Bree

The village of Bree was situated on one side of a hill and was surrounded by a dike and hedge. An intriguing description of it is listed in Chapter 9 of the first book of The Fellowship of the Ring.

The colored version of the map is shown above. A black and white copy of the map is included in "The Lord of the Rings Unit Study" - listed below.

Mapping Activity: Students can read the description in the first few pages of chapter 9 and make their own copy of the map. The compare their copy with this version.

Map of Nan Hithoel

Nan Hithoel (or Lake Hithoel in English) is the location of the dramatic scene where orcs attack the company while Frodo is on the top of the hill, making the decision to advance to Mordor alone.

Because the scenery is somewhat complicated to follow, and the descriptions are provided over several chapters, students are enncouraged to follow along on this map which is based off of Tolkien's map of The Anduin River and his descriptions of the events in Chapters 9 and 10 of Book 2 of "The Fellowship of the Ring."


The maps included in the front and back of newer editions of "The Lord of the Ring" are a bit small to follow along comfortably. There is also the inconvenience of having to flip back and forth.

Map Books of Middle Earth

The Atlas of Middle Earth

My favorite of the map books that can be purchased is "The Atlas of Middle Earth" by Karen Fonstad from Houghton Mifflin Publishers. There are several features of this book that I like, but three I will mention here.

First, there is a full poster size map of Middle Earth based on Tolkien's works. It is much easier to read than the small maps in the actual book.

Second, she has - over several sections - a detailed map of the journey of Frodo and company with the actual dates. (The dates are calculated based on information in the book and the appendix of "The Return of the King" which is not included in the unit study below.)

And third, she has maps of the first and second age, if readers are interested in a short synopsis to get them up to speed on some of the history that took place in those eras before hobbits inhabited the Shire.

This book does have other features that would be attractive to some fans, including geological features, rain fall, population maps, and detailed maps of some locations.

The Maps of Tolkien's Middle-earth

"The Maps of Tolkien's Middle-earth" by Brian Sibley provides four full-color maps based on Tolkien's original maps. The two most valuable include a map of the Shire and a map of Middle Earth in the third age. For each section, a glossary of events and individuals can help fill in the gaps of readers who are interested in the background info, but have not read the entire volumes of Histories of Middle Earth.

Printable Map of Middle Earth

There are many readers who would like a decent-sized map of Middle Earth but aren't in the market to buy an entire mapbook to cover all the previous ages of histories. I have found this colored map which is readable and easily printable:

http://www.ititches.com/middleearth/me.pdf (Copy and paste that URL into your browser search bar. We are avoiding live links because things change rapidly on the web.)

Buy The Fellowship of the Ring Unit Study

Student Guide AND Teacher's Answer Key Included
$2.99 Download - 127 pages
See below for contents of unit study

Fellowship of the Ring Pages at a Glance